With stories proclaiming ‘Crisis in the NHS’ an almost permanent rash in our media, the prospect of charging patients for GP and accident and emergency services will soon become a reality. An increasingly elderly population riddled with multiple long-term conditions combined with the hangover of continued austerity means that the numbers no longer stack up
When the Bank of England is not indulging employees with the kind of taxpayer-funded hospitality that would make a bailed-out banker blush, its lofty and unelected officials might like to consider how they could help us ordinary mortals in the new year. It has emerged that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street spent nearly £100,000
One of the worst habits of the trillion-pound general insurance industry will be brought to an end in April next year. Even to a cynic, the willingness of many large general insurers to prey on the blind faith of loyal customers is thoroughly distasteful. Each year, they write with their renewal notices, thanking us for
For one in seven people alive today, Facebook is their window on the world. More than one billion of them log onto the social network on their mobiles each and every day. Facebook knows their hopes, dreams, secrets and fears. It knows who their friends and family are and what they look like. It knows
If only all my stories had as much impact. My interview with Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, sent shockwaves around the world’s currency markets. The Canadian was just three months into his new role as Britain’s most powerful unelected official when he visited Leeds to explain the central bank’s then new
At the height of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the dead and dying lined the streets, locals too scared to remove the bodies or aid the stricken for fear of contracting the virus. Entire communities were wiped out as aid organisations came under fire for lacking a sense of urgency in the face of
